1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a musical tone generating apparatus and method which can be suitably applied to an electronic wind instrument, etc., and which generates a musical tone according to a detected pitch of an input vibration signal (such as that of a human voice).
2. Description of the Prior Art
As is known, a human player blows a natural (acoustic) wind instrument to vibrate air (air column) in a tube to generate musical tones. For example, when blowing a trumpet, the player strains his/her upper and lower lips pressed against a mouthpiece and blows air with great force through a gap between the strained lips, thus vibrating air column within a tube. On this occasion, degree in which the lips pressed against the mouthpiece are strained is properly increased or decreased (i.e. this is called “embouchure”) to generate a desired harmonic tone and adjust the tone quality. By the way, a natural wind instrument such as a trumpet has the problem that a musical tone with a substantial pitch cannot be sounded in a stable manner unless the air expired from the player has a sufficient pressure (expiratory pressure). Therefore, in the case where the expiratory pressure is very low or embouchure is not properly carried out, it is difficult to sound a correct musical tone. For example, in a moment immediately after the start of blowing, an expiratory pressure enough to sound a musical tone cannot be obtained, and hence the expiratory leaks first and then a substantial musical tone is sounded with an increase in expiratory pressure. For this reason, the player of a trumpet or the like usually starts sounding (for example, the player carries out embouchure and blows in a trumpet) earlier than timing at which a musical tone should be actually sounded, thereby adjusting musical tone sounding timing. Further, in wind instruments such as a flute and a trumpet, a breath tone produced during sounding is part of tonal characteristic of such instruments.
Electronic musical instrument has been known which detects a pitch included in a vibration generated physically by input of sound (expiratory) or operation of a performance operator such as plucking of a string by the player, and sounds an electronic sound signal in a tonal scale corresponding to the detected pitch. This type of electronic musical instrument takes a long period of time to accurately detect the pitch of an input vibration signal, and hence has the problem that sounding cannot be quickly started in response to the input of a vibration signal, and a natural musical tone cannot be generated during a performance. Therefore, for example, when strings of an electronic guitar (synthesizer guitar) are plucked, musical tones are generated at a predetermined pitch corresponding to plucked open strings while the pitch of an input signal is not detected, and thereafter, once the pitch is detected, musical tones are generated at the detected pitch so that the responsiveness can be improved (refer to Japanese Patent No. 2,508,035, for example).